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I'd like to know what percentage of time employers are following up and letting people know that they have been considered and are NOT moving forward after an interview. Recently, I looked at our stats and I'm only getting back to 88% of our candidates after interviews. 12% of them never hear what happened . . . that's not good. My guess is, however, that we are way high and that generally people do NOT hear back from recruiters or employers about their interests in employment.

Let me know what you've experienced here. And I think a thread with this title could go off into some other useful discussions as well, such as how we treat people who are in the interview process and so on. Left alone to fend for yourself for a meal instead of dining with a company employee? Etc.

Based on my experiences after a phone interview that's about right, 80% follow up, and 20% no Response, that is until I have to Trigger a reminder email/ or phone call, then maybe 50% of those 20% will respond. This is for a No-go as you mentioned.

For face-to-face interview, 100% follow up for a no-go but that's due to how it works in my sector - if they've invested time/Money to get you for an interview then the rejection call is part of the process. IN this case it can be an email follow-ed by a phone call so you can get feed-back - i have never had to call to get Feedback after a no go decision following a face to face interview.

Regarding your other questions on employee Treatment during an interview process, i have mainly been treated with respect, i have ran into a few Off People that have been antagoistic or not open and it seems to have a 100% correalation of self-removal/non interest going through the interview process, in generally i give a no thank you email afterwards but that has been 5% of my interviews, so ...rare. In General from interview, the 95% percent of the time, i've been made to feel welcomed, respected, even in cases of Panel interviews and case-presentations where applicable. But then again I really enjoy when cases are part of an interview process so ist probably my Approach.

For my Treatment of others during an interview especially with those you know will not get an offer, I am very professional and respective because at the end of the day, ist a small world, so why be antagonistic? The candidate can be fully Aware of gaps and concerns quite professionally with butter on top, no Need to make them feel bad right? One day they could be interviewing me or even hiring me! - in this world you never know! And that's no joke, my current head of my department who is a +2 in hiarachy was interviewed 6 years ago for a for a lower Position, one of those peer Interviewers is now a direct Report (they get along great).

So in that case you could think.."here's a loser that will be rejected let me treat him bad" or "here's someone who at this Moment has potential but not a fit a the Moment, doesn't matter, I am professional and respectful irrespective". I'll take the latter, cause that Person sitting accross from you ...could well be a Network contact..and why not?

If I interview during meal time, I have not been left alone - my Dining Partners at the Minimum have included the personal Assistent but not alone. Reflecting this could relate to policy to never leave a candidate alone in the building but ist professional not to do so. For dinners, when applicable, I have always had that with the hiring Manager - and they're usually very exhausting to be honest so I don't like it.

So in summary, I do get common decency most of the time - of course it is easy to be biased as raise hell over the 5% of the time you don't get it, but that's human nature right? Focus on the negative the most and ignore the positive?

Dave, That is excellent follow-up by any standard whether it be an employer, recruiting firm, or temporary agency. I have been on about 50 formal interviews in my career and I have seen about every possible behavior, good and bad. So, I tend take any bad behaviors in stride, never letting them know that I am upset unless I want them to know. However, this is one bad behavior that infuriates me because you (employer) expect the candidate to reciprocate in kind but you can't be held to same standard. For example, would a hiring manager be mad if the candidate didn't write a thank note, was late to the interview by 20 min w/o prior notice, promised to do something but didn't follow-up, exaggerates one's qualifications, or delayed making a decision on an offer. Employers should be held to the same standard as candidates and they should appreciate candidates that do interview.

For phone interviews, I would say about 20-30% follow-up after a phone interview. I don't have an exact number because I don't keep track of this. So, I would expect the number to higher; however, it is quite low. Sadly, the number gets worst with the face to face interviews. I get a follow-up (w/o calling myself) after a face to face interview about 15-20% of the time regardless of whether a recruiter or employer is handling the interview. Often I have found the larger and more formal the interview is the less likely you will receive a call back after a face to face. When there are multiple interviewees and several parties handling the interview process, the less likely will a courtesy follow-up will be given. I wished managers would stop this trend of having a candidate interview the whole team and then some, giving them all (team) an equal say in the hiring decision. Sometimes team members have their own agendas. This leads to indecision and positions being held open for a long time; which costs money!

One strategy that I colleague told me about to avoid this problem of follow-up was to ask for the job after each interview regardless of who you are interviewing on the team and how many times you have to do this. After an interview, you express your interest in the position and willingness to move forward in the process. Then you ask them if you have gained their trust to move forward in the process and if there was any objections to you moving forward, can you have the opportunity to address those objections? Then ask them again if you have their support moving forward (if you had to address any objections). Using this strategy, you have a better chance of gauging where you stand and getting feedback after a face to face. Probably increasing your odds of a polite follow-up.

About a year ago, I interviewed for a reagent sales position that was a nightmare. I had to interview with about twenty people and was invited to the final interview at corporate headquarters (across the country). The final interview consisted of meeting with 8 people that day. Only two people were interviewing for the position and to this day, I never got any indication of whether the position was filled or not. I thought the interview went well and there was some positive feedback. The manager promised to get back with me in two weeks; never did. I called him after FIVE weeks and he said "things take longer than expected." The recruiting firm didn't know anything and the recruiter was reluctant to push for an answer of what they were doing. Finally, I asked a colleague who works as a sales manager in this region for this company but in a different division; he made some informal calls and found out that the hiring manager hired a subcontractor to fill the region. So much for honestly and politeness by this manager. I even email and wrote a thank you note for each of the eight people I interviewed with that day; only one person responded --not even the hiring manager or HR was polite enough to reply back.

Two final points:

Why do people behave this way? Is it for legal or HR reasons? (e.g. the fake interviews to meet demographic quotes when they have an "inside guy" for the job; been there, it sucks)

Why do people stress out so much in an interview or play games?

I just assume now that if I really want the job, I will have to be the aggressor and follow-up because most people will not be this polite. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. So I am calling after 2-3 weeks regardless of HR or anyone else especially if the manager made a promise.

Networking avoids a lot of this impolite (or weird) behavior as I have said before. When a trusted colleague invites you in for an interview with the right senior manager (i.e. a decision maker or though leader within the company), you avoid a lot of this BS. The process is much simpler and there is less people to interview with; HR is not heavily involved. Plus, you will get the professional courtesy you deserve when you use this approach and talking with the right people.

Yes, DX, I know your concerns here. Maybe you should try it instead of being so passive about networking. Read Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters.

Generally the only time I hear back from an employer is if they are using automated software setup to reply automatically to candidates when a position is closed or if a recruiter (direct hire) is involved who is keeping communication with the company.

I've had companies fly me out to an interview on their dime or pay travel for me to drive there 200 miles and then just go radio silence on me. I was honestly shocked when I even got any response after an interview. I got to the point where I just go to the interview expecting never to hear from them again so I am pleasantly surprised if I am offered the job as opposed to crushed and frantic every time they just go silent.

Nate W. wrote:Networking avoids a lot of this impolite (or weird) behavior as I have said before. The process is much simpler and there is less people to interview with; HR is not heavily involved.

I think that is pretty much the source of the impoliteness. Companies have given HR too much of a role in hiring and delegate a lot of applicant follow up to them.

My respect for HR had pretty much dwindled to nothing on my last job search. A lot of the downright obnoxious behavior I experienced was dealing with them. In a few instances dealing with HR became such an issue I had no other choice but to withdrawal. I've had HR people assign me essays like this was third grade, demand I take hour long junk-science psychometric tests, use all sorts of bizarre and humiliating interviewing techniques, treat me in a condescending manner, and of course not follow up with communications.

Part of HR's job is representing the company to outsiders and many of them are absolutely atrocious as it. Recently an HR person made a PR nightmare for their company by canceling the interview of a candidate who inquired on the salary range. The backlash when the letter was shared publicly caused significant damage to that company's image.https://www.buzzfeed.com/ishmaeldaro/sk ... .prX1ar4Jx

Applicants that doesnt make it to the final selection round gets the automated thanks for your interest response from HR.

Applicants that do make it to the final round but not to an interview may get a response saying that we did Think that their CV was of interest and that we would like to save their contact information for possible future positions. This is usually written by the hiring manager

Everyone that got an intreview gets a personal note from the hiring manager.

This usually works although not to a 100% successrate. When misses occur it is usually due to HR being overloaded with multiple recruitments and various departments are handling their own applicants. Applicants making progress in the process Always gets a response also in these cases but there have been misses with the automated responses.

When applying for advertised positions my estimate is that I had a maybe 50-70% no thank you rate with the rest not coming back at all. Most of these were automated responses and a few more individualized responses. When I was making most of these applications i was in my first industry position following my PhD.

After this I have received all my job contacts through networking or through being contacted by recruiters. A number of the recruiter contacts have stopped after an initial phone or e-mail contact that resulted in that there wasnt any mutual interest to proceed. These contacts have always been polite.

With exception of getting an answer or not to your applications what other points are there where companies are either good or bad during the interview process and what did you possibly do about it?

One example of a company missing something is when I was interviewing for a company at both US coasts starting on the west coast with maybe 10 1:1 interviews then taking the redeye to the east coast for a meeting with the company CEO and some other people that were attending a sales meeting. In addition to the fact that it was a very tiresome interview process the company had missed making arrangements for payment of my hotel room which I discovered when checking out after spending around 2 hours in a 5 star hotel room. At the time I didnt find any good and fast fix to this so I checked out paying with my personal credit card. For various reasons including me not pushing it this was never reimbursed.

That is an absolute horror story PG. As I'm an advocate for job-seekers in that situation, I would have pushed that employer until they caved. It was probably a slip up somewhere and not intentional, and it tells you something about the organization's structure that they couldn't just fix it easily with a check.